Ghost Hope

by Ripley Patton

  “We got it just in time,” Grant said, helping me sit up. “Samantha remembered the override code from when she saw her dad type it in. You should have seen Wade Hermiston. He was trying to crawl under the door. I’ve never seen an old guy backtrack so fast.”

  “They didn’t get in?” I asked, dragging in a ragged breath.

  “We’re locked in tight, safe and sound,” Pete said, taking my other arm as I stood up. “How about you? Seems like you were having a bit of a panic attack there.”

  “Yeah.” I exhaled. “I guess so.”

  “He looks pissed,” Grant said, pointing toward a security monitor positioned over the bay door, now come to life and featuring Wade Hermiston’s face scowling up into the camera from outside. He raised his gun and shook it, his mouth forming obscenities I couldn’t hear as an angry mob swirled silently around him.

  11

  ANTHONY

  I wasn’t dead.

  As long as I could feel the pain, I wasn’t dead.

  That was what I told myself every time I woke up in the dark.

  The dark was good. It kept me from seeing the gory stump at the end of my right arm.

  Fineman had done that to me. Fineman and his obsession with those fucking PSS freaks. He’d always been a sympathizer, agreeing to keep that defective pet in the dome for all those years. He’d mutilated me for doing exactly what he should have done to that minus bitch Olivia in the first place, but apparently cutting off my hand hadn’t been enough. He was a sicko. A lunatic who liked to fuck people in the head. So, he’d left me in this cell to rot, and he’d left something else with me, something to taunt me while I died.

  It hadn’t been in my cell at first. Not that I remembered. Then again, I’d been in and out of consciousness. No, I was sure it hadn’t been there when the guy came to cauterize my wound. The lights had still been on then, and I hadn’t seen it. So, maybe Fineman had brought it after I’d passed out.

  And when I’d come to later, I’d moved my leg and brushed against it on the cold cement slab, sending it clattering to the floor. The cell was pitch black, so I couldn’t see what it was, but it sounded hard and metallic, like something I could use to escape. So, I’d gotten down on the floor, searching for it.

  I’d led that search with my right hand, until it had brushed up against the thing on the floor and pain had surged up my arm, almost knocking me out again. But I’d fought it off, cursing myself for forgetting I didn’t have a fucking right hand anymore. Then I’d reached out carefully with my left hand, running my fingers along the outline of the object.

  When I’d realized what it was, I’d almost laughed.

  The thing on the floor in front of me was the PSS-severing knife Fineman had invented to save his precious test subjects from certain death. It was the knife I’d used to cut off Olivia Black’s defective hand. He must have put it in my cell, tossed it in like trash, because to him it was.

  Fineman had claimed the knife hadn’t worked. He’d said I’d fucked up and it hadn’t gotten Olivia’s sample. But I knew that wasn’t true. I’d felt it take her PSS, and I’d seen her empty, useless stump afterwards. There was no doubt it had worked. If Fineman had ruined the sample later, how was that my fault? Fuck him. It wasn’t on me if he’d screwed up.

  But finding the knife had given me hope. If he’d put it in my cell, he’d come back to rub it in my face. Or question me. I could still tell him about Palmer, how he’d wanted to get rid of that bitch as much as I had—how he’d egged me on. And I could rat out the guys who’d helped me drag her to the interrogation room. I still had options. Or so I thought.

  Except Fineman never came back. No one did. I hadn’t seen or heard a soul since the guy who’d cauterized my stump had left. Shortly after that, the lights had gone out and everything had grown eerily silent.

  That’s when I started to really freak out.

  The compound had always been too quiet, so different from the woods where I grew up. The longer I’d been here, working and living underground like a rodent, the more it felt like nothing could touch me, but there had always been sound, and light, and the shift of air as the building recycled it. I’d always had a sense of people going about their business above me.

  But the moment I’d discovered the knife in my cell, the silence and stillness became so deep, it was as if nothing existed beyond those four stone walls—like I was the only one left in the world.

  It had been days since then, and no one had come for me.

  It had been so long since I’d eaten, I didn’t feel the hunger pangs anymore.

  The water in the toilet tank I’d been drinking had run out a while ago. My lips were chapped and bleeding, and I eagerly licked away the blood that seeped from them.

  I was weak, barely able to clutch the knife, but I hadn’t let go of it since I’d found it. It was something to hold on to. Something other than the darkness and myself.

  Of course, I’d tried to use it to hack at the door lock and the hinges, but the damn thing wasn’t made for real cutting. It had been designed to harvest PSS, not for a prison break.

  Maybe that was the joke. Maybe Fineman, sick fuck that he was, hoped I’d get desperate enough to try and use it to cut my own throat. It would take a long, agonizing time to end myself that way. Was that what he wanted?

  It didn’t really matter anymore. I was going to die, one way or another. That had become clear. The gunshots I thought I’d heard a few hours ago—was it hours or days?—they’d just been a hallucination. No one was coming for me. It was almost over.

  Something had obviously gone wrong. I knew that now. Not just with me and the knife, but with everything.

  If Fineman had won the great conflict he’d been planning against The Holders to take the dome, he would have come to gloat. If he’d lost, the enemy would have come for me by now.

  But this solitary, silent death made no sense.

  I curled up in a ball on my slab, trying to preserve warmth, my back toward the wall and the knife pinned between my knees so I wouldn’t drop it. I couldn’t trust my remaining hand or my fingers to hold anything. That’s how weak I was.

  I focused on resisting the darkness crowding into my head, not sleep or dreams, but the bottomless pit of unconsciousness. If I went there again, I wasn’t coming back.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And then another, feeling myself begin to slip away.

  Light flashed against my eyelids, white and hot, and I opened them, blinded by the lightbulb in the ceiling, blazing like the sun. Then the door to my cell made a clicking noise, a sound I’d heard a thousand times before, the gentle snick of the lock mechanism disengaging. A draft wafted over me, slight and warming as if the entire compound had exhaled, and the door swung open.

  I sat up, my head spinning, and yanked the knife from between my legs, holding it out unsteadily, brandishing it against whatever was coming. Were they here to hurt me again? Or had they come to kill me?

  But there was no one behind the door.

  It opened slowly, revealing the well-lit hallway beyond it, completely empty.

  I could hear the hum of the compound’s systems coming back on-line, all the familiar sounds I’d grown used to while living and working there.

  I stood up, shakily, clutching the knife with all my strength, still unsure. Was this a trick?

  I was dizzy and weak, yes, but now adrenaline was pumping through my veins at the thought of freedom and escape. The door to my cell was open.

  I stumbled across the threshold and out into the hallway. All the other cell doors were hanging open and unlocked. There was only one thing that could do that: a full loss-of-power reboot. They’d mentioned that in my training and laughed, saying it would never happen. There were too many backups, they said. Too many checks and balances between the two sides to protect against that sort of vulnerability.

  I took a few more hesitant steps down the hallway.

  From behind me came a buzz and a grating sound.


  I whirled around, brandishing the knife, as every single cell door on the block slammed shut simultaneously, their mechanical locks clicking into place.

  The power reboot had triggered a full security reset. If I’d hesitated any longer, I’d still be in that fucking cell.

  What the hell was going on?

  I should have stopped and answered that question. I should have assessed the situation like my old man had taught me, but I didn’t.

  Instead, I raced down the hallway into the elevator and hit the button for the staff cafeteria. No one was there, of course—it was obvious the entire compound had been abandoned—but there was a faucet, and cups, and food. I ate and drank until I threw up. Then I ate and drank again, selecting more carefully. There was plenty of stuff that hadn’t gone bad, that wouldn’t go bad for a very long time. I was glad I’d thrown up the first round. In my weakened state, food poisoning could kill me.

  Or whoever had turned the power back on would.

  I started rummaging through kitchen drawers until I found the knives. I took the sharpest three, putting one in my boot, one in my belt, and one in my jacket pocket. Everything was so much more difficult with my dominant hand gone, and I wasn’t even sure I could still wield a weapon effectively, but at least now I was armed with more than Fineman’s useless PSS knife. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to ditch it, so I cut a black garbage bag into a long strip, tied it to the damn thing, and slung it over my shoulder. It felt kinda like a gun. Maybe if I ran into anyone, they’d mistake it for one.

  I considered running, but I was in no shape to go anywhere. The food and water had helped a little, but just finding the knives had exhausted me and my wrist was throbbing. There was no way I’d survive ten minutes out in the desert. Especially not with a bloody stump and filthy bandages. Infection would kill me as sure as anything. I needed fresh dressings and antibiotics. I’d find both in the infirmary. Plus, there’d be pain meds.

  As I left the kitchen, I noticed a security camera pan my direction, triggered by my movement. I quickly slipped behind it, pulled the knife from my belt, and severed the connection at its back. The less evidence I left of my presence the better. On the way to the infirmary, I skirted other cameras, making sure I was always outside their range. Fineman might have stripped me of my keys, weapons, and high-level clearance pass, but I still knew a few tricks.

  Once I’d taken out the infirmary camera, I scored antibiotics, pain killers, and bandages. I popped a handful of pills, sterilized and rewrapped my stump, pulled a gurney out, and lay down for a minute, just to rest my eyes. It was a stupid move, but between the exhaustion, the food in my belly, and the medication, I could barely stand, let alone think straight.

  As soon as I lay down, my head began to spin. My body felt like it was falling, and I started to hear voices, like an angry mob, screaming and banging to get in.

  Shit. What the fuck had I taken? I reached for the bottles on the counter to check the labels, but my stump knocked them to the floor, pills scattering everywhere like gentle rain.

  I liked rain.

  It had always put me right to sleep back home.

  The pitter-patter of gentle rain on a tin roof.

  It was—so—fucking—nice.

  12

  DAVID MARCUS

  I woke to the sound of muffled voices and a beam of sunlight streaming through a crack in Lonan’s bedroom curtains, nailing me right in the face.

  From the intensity of the light, I was guessing it was late afternoon. I’d slept long and hard after my run and tumble in the desert.

  I untangled myself from my sleeping bag on the floor and slowly stood up, ignoring the throbbing pain in my knees and shoulder. The muted voices coming from the living room grew louder, and I realized it wasn’t just Reiny and Lonan. Someone was here. More than one person. And the discussion was heated.

  I limped carefully to the door and opened it quietly, just a crack, listening.

  “—should tell him everything,” a familiar husky female voice said. It was Mia, Reiny’s aunt.

  “No,” Gordon countered. “He didn’t believe me last night. What’s the point in telling him the rest? Besides, he stole from us.”

  Stole from him? I’d offered to pay for the cube and the birth certificate. What the hell was he going on about?

  “We don’t know that,” Mia said. “You misplace things in that junk heap of yours all the time.”

  “I didn’t misplace it,” Gordon growled. “It was in the den when I went to get the cube. I saw it with my own eyes, and now it’s gone.”

  So, he wasn’t talking about the cubes. He thought I’d taken something else, and he had his old-man-panties in a twist about it. Like I’d want his desert crap.

  “I don’t trust him,” he went on, “If he was missing until sunrise, as Lonan says, he could have met up with someone and told them everything.”

  “He didn’t meet anyone,” Lonan said calmly. “He just needed some time alone. That’s all.”

  “Then how do you explain the painting?” Gordon huffed. “Last night, he’s never heard of Stephen Black or the visions, and this morning he shows up with that. You really think he just found it in the desert?”

  “You find weird shit in the desert every day,” Mia pointed out. “And you’ve heard Reiny and Lonan explain about the displacement. Don’t hold it against the boy because he found that painting and you didn’t.

  “Fine,” Gordon snapped, “What about the news from the tribal council this morning? You think that’s just a coincidence?”

  “That has been brewing for weeks,” Reiny said. “David had nothing to do with it.”

  “I still don’t trust him,” Gordon said. “He’s not interested in the truth. We haven’t kept this under wraps for all these years to put it in the hands of a fool.”

  “He’s not any more of a fool than you were at his age,” Reiny said, sounding pissed. “And he’s a part of this whether you like it or not.”

  “I don’t like it.” Gordon huffed. “He isn’t what I expected. He’s too damaged.”

  Ouch. I guess that’s what I got for eavesdropping. Then again, I’d already known I didn’t measure up to Gordon’s standards. I’d also known they were holding out on me last night, and this conversation proved it.

  “Well, we have to tell him about the council meeting,” Reiny said, her voice getting louder as if she’d turned her head toward Lonan’s bedroom door.

  And that was my cue to exit before she realized I’d been listening.

  I pushed the door open and came out, running my hand through my hair and yawning.

  “Hey.” I stopped and stared, as if I were only just discovering there were guests in the house.

  They were all sitting at the table in the dining room, which was really just a corner of the living room, crowded with a table and some chairs. Kaylee was off to the side, sitting in her favorite overstuffed chair and playing with her magic eight ball.

  “David,” Reiny said, standing up nervously. “Did we wake you?”

  Her genuine concern made me feel like a complete dick. I’d treated her horribly last night, and I’d promised Lonan I’d apologize as soon as I saw her. I just hadn’t realized I’d have to swallow my pride and do it in front of Gordon.

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “But I owe you an apology. Last night, I acted like an ass. And I’m sorry to you two as well.” I turned to Gordon and Mia. “What you told me was a lot to take in, but that’s no excuse.” I was lying. I wasn’t sorry for how I’d reacted to Gordon. But buddying up to him was probably the best way to uncover the secrets he was keeping.

  “See?” Reiny said, turning to her uncle. “We can all sit down and have a rational conversation together.”

  “A rational conversation about what?” I asked, pulling up a chair.

  Gordon Lightfoot frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. It was going to take more than a little placating to change his opinion of me.

  “Ther
e was an emergency tribal council meeting this morning,” Reiny said, sitting down again as well, though she looked far from relaxed. “Our tribal association was contacted by the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla, who have been in a legal battle with the government over land near the Columbia Gorge. Apparently, last night, it escalated, and the tribes made a move onto the land. Now, they’re calling for all available local tribes to join them in solidarity. They think the more people we have, the more likely their claim will be honored.”

  “You mean it’s like a sit-in?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “I thought those got played out in the 70s.”

  “At least my generation stood up for what they believed in,” Gordon said.

  “I assume that means you two are going,” I said, ignoring his jibe. It made sense. Gordon and Mia were retired hippies or whatever. They could leave their artsy junkyard and go protest without losing their livelihoods.

  “We are elders of the Warm Springs tribes,” Gordon said. “Of course we’ll go.”

  “Reiny and I are going too,” Lonan said, looking at me. “Which leaves you and Kaylee with a choice. You could stay here, but Reiny and I will be packing up most of the food and supplies from the house to take with us.”

  “We’d really like you to come,” Reiny added. “Gordon and Mia have an RV and plenty of camping supplies for all of us.”

  “What about your jobs?” I asked. “The resort is just going to let you go?”

  “People are stepping in to cover for those of us who can go,” Lonan explained. “This is more important than checking in guests and cleaning rooms.”

  “Yeah, but the tribes are never going to win this,” I said. “You realize that, right? The government can’t concede on land ownership to native people, not even a little, because as soon as they do it opens a whole can of worms calling the origins of this entire country into question. I mean, it’s noble and everything, but it’s a complete waste of time.”